


Appellation

by Ezlebe



Series: Nomen [1]
Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars Episode VIII: The Last Jedi (2017), Star Wars Sequel Trilogy
Genre: Canon-Typical Violence, Conversation and Reconciliation, Gen, M/M, TLJ Spoilers, Unspoken Apology
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-12-18
Updated: 2017-12-18
Packaged: 2019-02-16 09:36:52
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,482
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13051353
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Ezlebe/pseuds/Ezlebe
Summary: Hux watches the pacing for a few seconds longer; he can see Ren has lost some of that madness at the edge of his eyes, replaced by something more rattled. “Have you finally realized what you’ve done, then?”





	Appellation

**Author's Note:**

> A short, little nothing fic to work out a few thoughts.

“I've come as..." Hux trails off, watching Ren pull at the roots of his own hair, lank and greasy. He clears his throat again, not bothering to mask his tone as he steps forward to allow the door to close behind him. “Supreme – ”

“Shut up!” Ren outright screams, the noise erupting garbled from his throat. “Just – just shut up! Why don’t you ever hold your fucking tongue?”

Hux watches him pace for a few seconds longer; he can see Ren has lost much of that madness at the edge of his eyes, replaced by something more rattled. “Have you finally realized what you’ve done, then?”

Ren continues to march unheeded, fingers still flexing even as his hands drop empty to his sides. “Where was your fight before, General?” He asks, his voice an almost depressingly bad attempt at snide. “You broke like a doll under my hand.”

“You were clearly not in your right mind, if you even have one,” Hux says, tempted to mention the merely visible state of Ren over the past days; he could be somewhat vain for all he wore a mask, clean shaven and hair immaculate, but now he just looks an unwashed fanatic. “Should I apologize for having survival instincts?”

“You showed no sign of such before; you never _cowered_ ,” Ren spits, actually sparing a glare over a shoulder, only to heave a harsh exhale as he looks back to watch one or the other approaching wall. “Too unused to real power, General?”

Hux actually feels a scoff break out between his lips. “You are hardly the first… _superior_ to use violence against me. I’ve learned well enough what works.”

Ren takes a sharp breath, arms and shoulders bunching up for a few more circuits across the room. It doesn’t take many to walk across, three steps at most, until he suddenly falters just in the middle, right in front of Hux. “I shouldn’t have shoved you,” he says, every point of his posture curled tensely inward, “Made is look like children.”

“Us?” Hux repeats, shifting his own stance slightly wider and feeling the sore line all the way up his side; getting thrown across the shuttle had hurt more from the surprise of it. Usually, he has _some_ spare instant to brace himself. “Us!? Who ordered an entire squad of bloody armored transports to fire on a man who was a mirage!”

Ren actually glances down and away, mouth pinching hard into a blanched, uneven line. “It’s all falling apart.”

“It has been for weeks,” Hux snaps, grinding his teeth together and feeling a sneer across his lips that is mostly for himself.

Ren predictably declines to respond, persisting in finding something fascinating on the wall.

“That scavenger defeats you – defeats _him_ ,” Hux continues, shrugging upward with a single shoulder and hearing a hysterical laugh burst from his own throat, feeling some desperate flicker of victory when Ren flinches backward in surprise. “Is the whole bloody armada next? Who can know; apparently, there’s no strategy involved, so all I can do is _sit and wait_.”

“No,” Ren mutters, his voice a quiet partner to the glower he sends from under his lashes.

“No?” Hux repeats, watching the tic at Ren’s eye and knowing this would be pushing his luck even if Ren hadn’t just declared himself Supreme Leader.

“I did it,” Ren says, lifting his head fully now, a tremulous pride striking out across his mouth. “I killed him. Not her.”

A peculiar silence settles heavy in the room, seconds of awkwardness turning to minutes. Ren clearly feels forced into the confession judging by the vague, intermittent chewing of his lips, but Hux feels almost stuck. The synapses in his mind refusing to ignite and carry out any thoughts to fruition.

“You couldn’t have sent a courtesy notice?” Hux asks eventually, feeling his hands curl into tight fists at his sides, fury twisting bitterly at the center of his chest. It was hardly as a good a secret it should’ve been that he disliked Snoke; on reflection, might even have given his prior assent if Ren had just said _something,_ but this way is near betrayal. “Instead, you lie; you choke me.”

“I didn’t plan it!” Ren roars, the words echoing harshly across the durasteel walls. He runs a hand through his hair, once, twice, then curls the fingers into claws halfway though the third, hair stuck up and looking mad. “He was bragging about…” he trails off into a deep, shaky exhale. “About all the control he had over me. That he knew how I was going to act, or think, or… He’s _used me_. For my entire _life_. And was bragging about it to _her_.”

Hux takes a slow breath, screwing his eyes shut for a moment and trying to grasp upon the least inflammatory question stirring his mind. “How did you even manage it?”

“He had taken my – her saber,” Ren says, his voice going low as some unreadable emotion seems to seep into his tone; his hand drops to his front, loosely rubbing across the other in an anxious twist around his knuckles. “It was just. Sitting on the dias. I used the Force and. And struck.”

Hux reaches up with an inhale, pressing into his forehead and trying to find some center within the small dark space of his own hands. He ends up sliding down slow without much thought except that his exhaustion must finally be coming to a head, his back scraping against the door as he finds a place to sit on the shiny tile at the entrance. The floor is pleasantly warm, almost welcoming, and Hux thinks he could just lay down, give up, and go to sleep; he’s almost curious to see how Ren would react.

The silence is broken little more than two minutes later, by Ren making some garbled noise between a derisive scoff and baffled hum. “Hux?”

“Oh, Supreme Leader,” Hux mutters, rubbing short circles with his fingertips and trying to keep his headache from going back into a full, aching throb; it had abated some in the lull after Crait, but now it’s just right back up. “Are you physically incapable of planning your decisions?”

“I just think of him,” Ren says, his voice abruptly taut again with anger, though it sounds more sullen than violent. “When anyone says it. Him. I don’t want to be _him_.”

Hux stares down into the dark space of his lap. His mind is still sluggishly trying to process the significance of Ren’s apparent coup and isn’t quite ready to move off the subject, but evidently they’re done talking about it. “What then?”

“Darth Vader was referred to as a Lord,” Ren suggests, a little too quick for someone who hasn’t been thinking about it.

Hux shifts his head up against his hand, peeking over his knuckles to find Ren staring back at him from the other side of the room; he’s now on the floor as well, which is oddly comforting. “He was a _second_ in command, Ren.”

Ren shakes his head, unwashed hair brushing across his shoulders. “I’m not calling _you_ a Lord.”

Hux blinks at the remark, feeling his expression go slack in shock.

Ren seems to realize what he’s said only a moment too late, his eyes breaking away from Hux – he doesn’t take it back. “It’s a title. I don’t – Just make an announcement of it.”

“It’s not…” Hux trails off, some strategic part of his mind grudgingly heaving forward. “You can’t simply go from Supreme Leader to Lord.”

“The only one who has called me that is you,” Ren says, his voice turning rough as his mouth forms into a snarl. “And you don’t even _mean_ it.”

Hux acknowledges that truth with a short tip of his head, conveniently back into his hand and allowing him to press a pair of fingers into his brow. He should announce _something_ – most of their forces don’t even know the Supreme Leader has fallen, and making the statement that Ren has taken his place and named himself the new Lord of the First Order would, to Ren’s credit, send a pseudo-wave of nostalgia for his erstwhile grandfather.

Hux sighs and leans back into the door, gesturing cyclically with his other hand. “Kylo Ren, Sovereign Lord of the First Order?”

Ren is quiet for a few moments, a short thrum of palpable discontent flowing through the room. “Fine.”

“As you say, _My Lord_ , the announcement will be made,” Hux says, enjoying the slight twitch at the corner of Ren’s mouth. He shoves up from the floor, far too regretfully, and forces himself to stand at loose attention in front of Ren’s sitting form. “Do you have anything else of import to tell me?”

Ren stares up at him, too long to be entirely telling the truth when he finally opens his mouth. “No.”

**Author's Note:**

> If judging by the snippets I wrote after this in the doc, it may become a pointless politico vignette fic that I apparently love doing with incredible inaccuracy - IE: parties, politicians, misunderstandings, etc.


End file.
